What makes a black conservative tick?

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By Megan Carpentier

At this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside of Washington, D.C., black attendees tend to stand out in the mostly white crowd. While 80 percent of black Americans self-identify as Democrats, 86 percent of self-identified Republicans are white — indicating clear political divides along racial lines.

While these racial divides were exposed by the 2016 election, African-Americans did vote in larger numbers for Donald Trump than for any other Republican candidate in recent history — proving, at least to some conservatives, that the monolith on black voters on which Democrats rely might not be quite so loyal.

Conservative African-Americans often have very sincere, deeply-held political beliefs that drive them to the movement. In attendance at CPAC were Independent Journal Review writer and gun rights activist Antonia Okafor and Horace Cooper, the chairman of African-American conservative group Project 21. They spoke about why they identify as conservative — and how they talk about their politics with other African-Americans who don't share their beliefs.